The Splatoon Global Testfire was a free Splatoon demo available on the Nintendo eShop for Wii U. It allowed players to engage in free four-versus-four Turf War battles at scheduled times ahead of the release of the game. It was available for download before the scheduled times, but server connection was not possible beforehand. The application was made unavailable for download afterwards. It was eventually succeeded by the Splatoon Testfire demo.

The Splatoon Global Testfire briefly returned from 21 August 2015 to 23 August 2015 for Wii U owners that had not yet purchased Splatoon.[1]

Splatoon Pre-Purchase

Promotional image of the pre-purchase gear

Players were given the option to pre-purchase Splatoon at various points in the Testfire demo. Players who pre-purchased were awarded special gear to use for the remainder of the event. The gear was only cosmetically different from the gear that regular players had access to, and had the same abilities. This gear did not carry over into the full version of the game.

Squid Research Lab

Promotional image for the event

During the Testfire, real-life members of the Squid Research Lab participated in battles, appearing in-game as Inklings with special research gear. The gear was only cosmetically different from the gear that regular players had access to, and had the same abilities.

Squid Research Lab gear featured a set of dark sunglasses with Ink Recovery Up, a lab coat with a large banner attached in the team color and Quick Respawn, and a pair of black dress shoes with white socks and Special Saver.

Squid Research Lab headgear

Squid Research Lab clothing

Squid Research Lab shoes

Event times

In order to ensure a sufficient number of players for the Testfire, Nintendo designated the following times to be used.

North America

Friday, 8 May 2015 8-9 PM PST

Saturday, 9 May 2015 4-5 AM PST

Saturday, 9 May 2015 12-1 PM PST

Saturday, 23 May 2015 3-4 PM PST (up to 5 PM PST due to connection errors for most of the original time)[2]

Europe

Saturday, 9 May 2015 4:00 BST

Saturday, 9 May 2015 12:00 BST

Saturday, 9 May 2015 20:00 BST

Gallery

The title screen before pre-purchase.

The title screen after pre-purchase.

The message given when the Testfire servers are offline.

The weapon selection screen.

The background for Testfire screens.

A still from the Splatoon Nintendo Direct announcing the Splatoon Global Testfire.

Trivia

The Global Testfire application did not create any save data. Players who received pre-purchase gear lost it after closing the software.

When the servers were shut down, players online were given the message: "A communications error occurred." They were then taken back to the title screen. However, if they were in the practice area when the servers were shut down, they were not brought back to the title screen and could stay in the area as long as they wanted.

The digital manual for the Global Testfire application was the full game's manual.

The exclusive Testfire gear was not present in the data of Splatoon at launch, but was added in an update. It is not available through normal gameplay, and if hacked in, all items in a set appear with the same name: